concentration camp.
Once he got there, he saw that the reality of Auschwitz was far worse than
anyone had suspected. Prisoners were routinely shot in roll call lineups for
transgressions as minor as fidgeting or not standing up straight. The manual
labor was grueling and endless. Men were literally worked to death, often
performing tasks that were useless or meant nothing. The first month Pilecki
was there, a full third of the men in his barracks died of exhaustion or
pneumonia or were shot. Regardless, by the end of the 1940, Pilecki, the
comic book superhero motherfucker, had still somehow set up an espionage
operation.
Oh, Pilecki—you titan, you champion, flying above the abyss—how did
you manage to create an intelligence network by embedding messages in
laundry baskets? How did you build your own transistor radio out of spare
parts and stolen batteries, MacGyver-style, and then successfully transmit
plans for an attack on the prison camp to the Secret Polish Army in Warsaw?
How did you create smuggling rings to bring in food, medicine, and clothing
for prisoners, saving countless lives and delivering hope to the remotest desert
of the human heart? What did this world do to deserve you?
Over the course of two years, Pilecki built an entire resistance unit within
Auschwitz. There was a chain of command, with ranks and officers; a
logistics network; and lines of communication to the outside world. And all
this went undiscovered by the SS guards for almost two years. Pilecki’s
ultimate aim was to foment a full-scale revolt within the camp. With help and
coordination from the outside, he believed he could stoke a prison break,
overrun the undermanned SS guards, and release tens of thousands of highly
trained Polish guerrilla fighters into the wild. He sent his plans and reports to
Warsaw. For months, he waited. For months, he survived.
But then came the Jews. First, in buses. Then, packed in train cars. Soon, they
were arriving by the tens of thousands, an undulating current of people
floating in an ocean of death and despair. Stripped of all family possessions
and dignity, they filed mechanically into the newly renovated “shower”
barracks, where they were gassed and their bodies burned.
Pilecki’s reports to the outside became frantic. They’re murdering tens of
thousands of people here each day. Mostly Jews. The death toll could
potentially be in the millions. He pleaded with the Secret Polish Army to
liberate the camp at once. He said if you can’t liberate the camp, then at least
bomb it. For God’s sake, at least destroy the gas chambers. At least.
The Secret Polish Army received his messages but figured he was
exaggerating. In the farthest reaches of their minds, nothing could be that